Abstract:

In order to reduce the pedestrian?ground impact injury in vehicle pedestrian collisions， a vehicle braking control strategy is proposed. The strategy releases the vehicle brake after the first contact between pedestrian head and vehicle， and then completely brakes the vehicle again according to some rules until the vehicle stops. Ten vehicle models， two braking methods （full braking and control braking） and a virtual test system （including 3 speeds ×4 pedestrian sizes ×2 pedestrian gaits） are selected to conduct all?together 480 simulation tests with MADYMO.The results show that the control braking method can reduce the pedestrian?ground impact injury without aggravating vehicle damage， and can shorten the distance between the vehicle and the first landing point of human body to within 1 m in 83.75% cases. Furthermore， the influence of vehicle type and impact speed on the protective effect of control braking method， the law of time?interval between first pedestrian?vehicle contact and re?full braking of vehicle and the reasons of injury aggravation in controlling braking are discussed， providing technical support for the further development of more practical and efficient braking control strategy in the future.

Key words: pedestrian?ground impact, injury, braking